OCEAN HUNTER I, PALAU: General Info

OCEAN HUNTER I, VESSEL SPEC'S:Length: 60 ftDisplacement: 30 tonsBeam: 15.5 ftConstruction: SteelDraft: 5.5 ftEngines: Twin 175 hpSpeed: 7 knots top endElectricity: Very quiet generators supply 24 hour electricity in 110 & 220 volts. All outlets regulated & surge protected.Fresh Water: 500 gallons (2000 liters) a day water maker supplies unlimited fresh water.Fuel: 750 gallons allows 1500 nautical mile rangeElectronics: GPS, SatNav,Weatherfax, 48 mile radar, Depthsounder, Fishfinder, VHF, HF radio, TV, VCR, CD StereoChaseboats: 15 ft inflatable, 21 ft fiberglassDive Compressors: Bauer 5; 3.5 c.f.m., 12 scuba tanksSafety Gear: Full safety equipment in compliance with USCG requirements, Emergency O2 kitSun Deck: A large suntanning area forward for those of you who want to sunbathe & comfortable covered seating aft to protect you from overexposure.Salon & Dining Room: Magnificently built of varnished teak, the salon of the OCEAN HUNTER is very homey & comfortable. It is separately air-conditioned & has a sophisticated entertainment centerMarine Library: The owners are proud of their scientific marine library with books about marine life, Palau, Micronesia, & underwater photography.Bar: The OCEAN HUNTER has a full bar on board. Mineral water is free. Soft drinks are $1.50 each. Beer is $2.00 each. You are welcome to bring duty-free beverages with you.History of OCEAN HUNTER I -- The 60 foot beamy, steel motorsailer's hull was built in Holland in 1979. It was shipped to Spencer's ship yard in West Palm Beach (the Rolls Royce of ship yards) & completed to the highest standards. In 1993 Tova & Navot bought the boat in Florida.About the yacht's owners -- From 1983 to 1986, Tova Har-El & Navot Bornovski, owners & operators of the OCEAN HUNTERs, have sailed & dove around the world. In May 1986, during their diving expeditions in the Pacific, they came to Palau to visit their friends Avi & Orly Klapfer, a few weeks before Avi & Orly brought the first liveaboard to Palau - the highly acclaimedSun-Tamarin. Navot & Tova fell in love with Palau & the Palauan people & stayed for more than a year as the cook & divemaster aboard the Sun-Tamarin. From then on it became their dream to return. That once in a lifetime opportunity came in 1992. Navot had just graduated as a Naval Architect & Mechanical Engineer, when he met his long-time friend Francis Toribiong. Francis, who started diving in Palau in the late '60s & discovered all the famous dive sites we dive nowadays, heard about Navot's plans to have a liveaboard. Francis & Navot's idea to bring a small & luxurious liveaboard was starting to roll. Ten months later, after remodeling their boat & crossing the Pacific Ocean with their children Yarden (4) & Udi (3), the OCEAN HUNTER took out the first group of divers & the rest is history. Since 1993, the OCEAN HUNTER has taken out more than 120 groups of satisfied divers.

Ocean Hunter has 3 air-conditioned guest staterooms, for 6 clients maximum at a time. Few live-aboards in the Pacific are this tidy & intimate an environment. None of the other Palau live-aboards are this intimate & TLC an experience, sunseekers!

Ocean Hunter has a desalination plant right on board for unlimited fresh water each day.

There's more to a Palau diving cruise than just regs & BCs. The chef on Ocean Hunter specializes in gourmet health foods; & the menu is awesome, clients & group leaders report! Many other live-aboards would die to have a chef that skilled.

You will get, literally, unlimited scuba diving opportunities day or night, as long as you follow safe PADI or NAUI recreational diving tables. Palau diving should be wide open & fun, but within decent safety limits, of course. The divemasters on Ocean Hunter do not hover over you like some worrisome mother hen, though safety & marine life briefings are available for those who want them. This is the most personalized live-aboard in the Pacific. Palau live-aboards look to Ocean Hunter as a standard.

All Ocean Hunter dives are made from a spacious swim platform at the vessel's stern. After the dive you can enjoy a warm fresh water shower if you wish. This is standard procedure on the top-flight Palau live-aboards.

There's a professional U/W photographer on board to help you with your camera gear, & with advice on challenging shots. Palau diving is a dear investment. Trust that investment to the personalized pros of the Ocean Hunter. You will always be thankful you did. Live-aboards like the Ocean Hunter are a rare breed on this Big Blue Orb. Try this Palau live-aboard for an experience that is as much aquatic dreamscape as reality.

Your Ocean Hunter I or Ocean Hunter IIII dive packages always include: all meals + unlimited diving + deluxe berths + a crew that literally becomes your oceanic valets for a week of unparalleled pampering, delicious cuisine & glorious Palau diving adventures in one of the world's Seven Scuba Wonders. Prices subject to possible change. Call our Palau vacation experts at 952-953-4124 to confirm prices & specials. The following text blocks & all photos are provided courtesy of our vacation partners, the warmly hospitable Bornovsky Family, owners of Ocean Hunter.OCEAN HUNTER I or OCEAN HUNTER III are your best bets for catered Palau scuba diving service because they offer:1. 7 full days of diving.2. 95% of diving is done from the main boat.3. Unlimited diving or your money back!4. Only 5 more divers in the water, so no cattle boats.5. Dive reefs & walls beyond the reach of day-boats & big live-aboards.6. Family run operation with the same crew for four years.7. Tova & Navot, who run this delightful vessel, are warm & gracious hosts!

GOURMET MEALS on BOARD OCEAN HUNTER I and OCEAN HUNTER III -- The master chef has been on board for many years. And the exquisite gourmet menu was developed by Tova, who went out on the boat for the first six months in Palau, learning what our guests liked. As a dedicated diver who knows the importance oflow-fat, fiber-rich meals, Tova has designed our menu with foods from around the world: Palauan, Italian, Mediterranean, French, Japanese (with fresh sashimi, sushi, & deliciously cooked fresh seafood) & much more.6:00 AM on: Gourmet coffee & tea are served with fresh sweet rolls & cakes.8:00 AM: After the first dive of the day, we serve a full breakfast.12:30 PM: After the third dive of the day, it's time for a buffet lunch.In the afternoon: Solomon serves one of his daily fresh fruit smoothies (papaya, pineapple, soursop, & many other local exotic fruits).7:30 PM: White tablecloth & chinaware dinner will be served after the night dive, with a different gourmet soup every night to warm you up.Abundant snacks: Will be served in between meals. Fresh vegetables & fruits are in abundance & will be served with every meal. The chef will happily cater to vegetarian needs or any other special dietary request.7 REASONS WHY OCEAN HUNTERS RULE the SCUBA DIVING WORLD of PALAU !1. Unlimited Diving -- Many boats advertise this, but only a few will truly let you dive as much as you want. OCEAN HUNTER will guarantee that as long as you stay within safe PADI tables, you can dive as much as your heart desires.2.TrueFreedom Underwater -- Our divemasters & captain will assist you, & one of us will accompany every dive, but if you want to explore on your own, we will not hassle you. (And that's a promise!)3. No Grinding Chaseboat Rides -- Because of its size & shallow draft, the OCEAN HUNTER will take you above the dive site & you will jump off the main boat from our comfortable dive platform. When the dive is over, you'll climb aboard & take a warm, freshwater shower right on the dive deck. No 30 minute rides on fancy chaseboats like the bigger liveaboards in Palau!4.Night Dives Every Night that Currents are Safe -- We offer great night diving on nearly every night. Our size allows us to spend the night right on Palau's most spectacular dive sites.5.Photography-Friendly Diving Yacht -- Most of our divers are keen photographers. Knowing the importance & value of your camera gear, we have put an extra effort into designing a big working area & more than 60 electrical outlets (110 volt & 220 volt) throughout the boat. The OCEAN HUNTER is connected with Palau's leading photoshop, where you can rent or buy anything you need. Computers are available for digital photo editing.6.Continuous service -- The OCEAN HUNTER staff is a close-knit family. Unlike the bigger liveaboards who change crews & captains every season, our family-run business gives you the same famous service & knowledge. We gather information year after year & are here waiting to share it with you!7. Flexibility of Service -- When weather permits, we sail down to the most southern islands of the Palau chain, Peleliu & Anguar, & spend the night. Both islands have deserted, shallow harbors which were the sites of major WW2 battles. On these expeditions, we offer a land tour with a local history guide.ADDITIONAL TIPS for SMOOTH TRAVEL PLANNING for your PALAU SCUBA DIVING ADVENTURE on the OCEAN HUNTER I or OCEAN HUNTER III !Hotel Reservations: U.S. DIVE TRAVEL's stateside office gladly will help with booking your hotel nights on Koror Island, if you want to stay extra nights. Please ask us about the availability & prices of accommodations in Palau. There's a LOT more to a Palau diving or Palau snorkeling adventure than the underwater immersion part. The cultural delights of Micronesia are not to be missed.Departure Tax: $35 per person, to be paid at the airport.Palau Scuba Diving Permits: The state of Koror requires a dive permit for each diver. Cost: $15 per trip.Palau Land Tours: When weather permits we spend the night in Peleliu or Anguar. A local guided land tour to see the islands & the WW2 remains can be arranged. Cost: $15 per person.Tips to Vessel Staff on OCEAN HUNTER: Tipping is a personal matter, but for guests who have requested guidance on the subject: the OCEAN HUNTER is a USA standard liveaboard, with crew's salaries based on tipping (upon your satisfaction). The average tips generally run 10-12% of the trip cost.

You'd best be certified before the trip. HAPPY PALAU DIVING !!

Palau is the Crown Jewel of Micronesia & the equatorial Pacific: its waters clear up to 200' on a good day, brimming with wildly colorful fish & corals, it's turquoise-greenish-celeste lagoons glowing with a rich color found nowhere else on Earth, exactly the same as this. Because so many wealthy Japanese tourists have flocked to the main island city of Koror in recent years, the best dive sites are well removed from this island, out along the remote reefs & in the famous Rock Islands. You need a good live-aboard to get there, pure & simple. The rockin' & rollin' six-packs, cramped with more than half a dozen divers & their cameras, open under the blazing equatorial sun, just won't do. Real Palau diving, the kind of Palau diving you pay good air ticket money to see, will always be far better from a good live-aboard, dive professionals agree. To avoid bumpy 2-hour speedboat rides each way to the choicest scuba diving sites -- that's what many of Palau's resorts offer -- there's no better way than aboard this premier diving yacht. You have only 6 divers per trip on board, plus fantastic food & service, & diving that will leave you saturated with beauty. Imagine these primo sites: Blue Point, Ngemelis Pass, the Quadruple Blue Hole. But Palau diving has even more to offer. Much more. At Blue Point you'll find schools of skinny gleaming barracuda, so vast that when you swim through the school it forms a seething quicksilver tunnel around you & wraps you up in living glitter. Now THAT's Palau diving. As you can see, Palau live-aboards really are the way to go in Palau of Micronesia. Palau diving also will offer you amazing wall dives, some teeming with clouds of fat pelagics that brush by you as unconcerned as of you were a speck of plankton. There are WWIII wrecks hunkering in clear water, huge gliding manta rays, schools of sharks (no worries; they're more afraid of you than you of them!) & some outstanding soft corals that will light up your eye, & your scuba diving memories for years. You'll also get a chance to visit a remote lake teeming with thousands of harmless jellyfish that swarm around you like clouds of living marshmallows, basketball-sized aliens bent on relentless gentle domination -- like the Tribbles on Captain Kirk's Enterprise! This is Jellyfish Lake; yes folks it's for real. There are shallow lagoons girdling the world-famous Rock Islands, just laden with fish & corals of every hue imaginable.